Drafting A Bodice Like the One From New Look 6067

I really like the dart treatment on the bodice of New Look 6067. It is a throwback to the elegant forties if I ever saw one--the darts, but not the dress, as the dress has a modern silhouette. Back in the 40s, they loved beautiful design elements like those chevron darts.

But I am a proportioned petite and shortening that bodice had nightmare written all over it.

Why? Because of the chevron darts.

If I shortened the bodice, it would throw off the spacing between the darts, it would change the length of the darts, and it would mess up the actual functioning dart itself!

After folding out enough length so it would fit me lengthwise, I'd have to go back and fix ALL of the above. I was not about to bother with any of it!

Instead, I decided to draft my own pattern. I haven't drafted anything in a while, but that didn't stop me. Ohh nooo! Not at all! I fearlessly plowed on! :-) 

The first thing I did was to gather up my supplies:

1. tissue from a pattern that I was never going to use
2. scissors for paper
3. glue stick
4. ruler
5  Sharpie
6. pencil
7. pins

I set them out on the table and then I picked a basic TNT to use as my base--that would be vintage Simplicity 3994:

Here's the bodice piece:

I traced the bodice piece already adjusted to fit me, on pattern tissue that I was never going to use--might as well put it to good use! :-)

On the traced pattern piece, I moved the side dart to the waist and combined it with the waist dart--you can actually see the side dart folded out and the waist dart opened up:

And then I turned my attention to creating the center front chevron darts. I wanted the first dart to be the functional dart. The other two were only going to be decorative darts.

At first, I did it all wrong! I marked where I wanted the center front darts to go, but when creating them, I cut them open from the center front to the other edge.

It created an unexpected pouf. That was never going to work, so I thought about it some more. I decided to cut the first dart open to the bust point, and cut the others to a point that would work design-wise. It turned out perfectly!

Here's the final--note that I glued tissue over the darts that I cut open. I also trued the slightly arcing waist line:

Here's the pin fitted sample (this is what made it apparent to me that I needed to true the waist line):

Here's a close up of the dart treatment:

It took me around 1 1/2 - 2 hours to do all of that drafting. It required concentration and focusing, and was actually fun! I actually enjoyed drafting again! It was a thousand times more interesting than simply altering a pattern. And it was quicker, too. If I had chosen to alter 6067, it would have taken me much longer than that.

I would say that my time drafting was time very well spent. I'm planning to use the pattern that I just drafted to make a nice navy blue dress--the fabric's from my stash. I'm sewing it right after I finish my Sunshiny Day 6 pak.

The next drafting project that I'm thinking about tackling is New Look 6000, the dress with the side waist radiants. That is another design that would be easier to redraft than to shorten at the waist.

Make this day a good one!